


Braver

by StainedGlassSpecs



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ben Hanscom Thirst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Mentions of Tom Rogan, The Losers all love each other so much, r+e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 05:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20651963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassSpecs/pseuds/StainedGlassSpecs
Summary: After It ends, Richie tries to come to terms with a few things.AKA more bittersweet hurt/comfort Richie, Reddie and Losers feels.





	Braver

“Do you think we were braver when we were kids?”

The question comes just after they escape the doors, quick and frantic while they take a moment to catch their breath. Richie feels so fucking _old_, bent double with his chest burning and his glasses trying to slide off the end of his sweaty nose, so it takes him a minute to register what Eddie is talking about. When he does though, it’s an easy answer.

“Uh, no. Nope. Don’t remember much, but I do remember being scared shitless. That hasn’t changed one bit, Eds.”

Eddie scrunches his face up, looking sort of confused and sort of annoyed, as if Richie is being difficult by not telling him what he wants to hear. “Obviously, asshole. But, but like. I think _I_ must have been braver? Just a little bit?”

Richie opens his mouth to reply, but Eddie is barrelling right ahead, somehow finding the energy to pace back and forth. “There was a _moment_, I think, where I think I stopped being scared, or it didn’t matter that I was, whatever, but I just can’t fucking _remember_ it and it’s driving me crazy!”

Richie tiredly tries to grab at him to make him stand still. “Eds, just. Stop. We’ve been over this. You’re braver than you think … you are when it counts, okay?”

Abruptly, Eddie turns around and takes his hand. Richie thinks maybe he didn’t mean to do it, because it seems to shock him into stopping. But he commits to the action, gripping tightly and leaning in. His eyes are wide and beseeching. “You counted, though! You could have died, and I did nothing, I just froze, and it … it …”

Richie can’t speak for a moment. He’s breathless for a different reason, and it’s _stupid_, it’s so fucking stupid because he’s too old for this shit but at the same time he’s feels thirteen again. Thirteen, and no braver, just the same kind of petrified. Eddie was right in a way, though. It wasn’t easier back then, but it was simpler. Kill the fucking clown. Hide his fucking feelings. Get on with life. Now, he’s possessed by the urge to do something different, and he can’t, it’s not the time, and he’s not the right person for it. “Eddie,” he says helplessly. “It’s okay.”

Eddie frowns to himself. “What’s so fucking scary about a closet, anyway?” he mutters to himself. “What kind of idiot is scared of closets?”

_Not the closet_, Richie’s stupid brain thinks. _An _open_ closet._ But Eddie saw the same thing, so it probably didn’t mean what Richie thought it meant. And that dumbass, lazy clown’s not smart enough to come up with something like that – It probably just thought it was a nice place to store Betty Ripsom’s legs.

Eddie’s still holding his hand, so Richie lets go and draws away. It’s the only thing that feels even a little bit safe, at this point. “Nothing inherently scary about a Pomeranian, either,” he says. “But the next time I see one of those, I’m gonna kick it into the fucking sun.”

“No, you won’t,” Eddie says, just to be contrary. He still looks like he’s thinking about closets and cowardice. His shoulders are shivering slightly, though whether it’s from nerves, or cold, or another illness he’s managed to aquire in the last hour or so, Richie doesn’t know. He has to resist the urge to bring him in close again. “I _should _have saved you,” Eddie says again.

“You’ll save me when it counts,” Richie says, just to get him moving again. “Come on. We'd better find the others and finish this."

_

Eddie does do that, he saves Richie when it counts. Richie finds himself wishing that Eddie had just been a genuine coward and kept his sorry ass from getting impaled, but of course he isn’t. He never could be.

“I remembered,” Eddie says, quietly triumphant even as he’s choking on his own blood. “Richie, the … the stupid fucker _told_ me. It’s gazebos.”

“That’s neat,” Richie says, not comprehending a fucking thing that Eddie is trying to say. The others are in the background, yelling, but he can’t tear himself away. “Just hold on, okay?”

Eddie takes his hand again, his grip much weaker than before. Richie doesn’t have the strength to draw away this time. “Richie, it … the meds. The inhaler. It was all fake, a gaz … a _placebo_. I forgot that I knew that. But I did, I found out and I … threw it in my mom’s face. Told her it was bullshit.”

Richie’s eyebrows shoot up. “You did?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, which turns quickly to a cough. “Felt good.”

“I’ll bet it did,” Richie said. “Tell me all about it later, okay? When we’re out of here.”

“You gotta do that with _him_, too,” Eddie says, ignoring him. “Take all his bullshit – closets, sickness, all that fake stuff – and throw it in his stupid face.”

“I know, I know. That’s what the guys are doing, right now. You see that?”

“You need to, too,” Eddie insists.

Richie hesitates.

“I wanna do it, but I can’t. Can’t move. Go do it for me, okay? Please?”

_I love you_, Richie thinks. The words float in his throat, choking him like always. “Ok, Eds,” is what he says instead, and goes to kill the fucking clown.

_

Later, when the deed is done and Richie is left staring at the ruins of all his dreams and nightmares, he finds himself wishing again that Eddie had been more of a coward, and that Richie himself had been just a little bit braver.

_

They all go back to the Town House afterwards, even Mike. It’s not even a question.

For the next twenty-four hours or so, they don’t really talk. They sleep, and cry occasionally, and circle each other quietly. They treat Richie, especially, with fragile wariness. He hears soft footsteps outside his door a couple of times, just standing there and listening. If he had the energy, he’d tell them to fuck off. On the other hand, it does keep him from going completely insane; Richie never did cope well with being left alone. His thoughts get louder - Eddie's croaking voice and still-warm body float vividly before his eyes. He startles awake over and over again, thinking that the house is empty and everyone else has left him, too.

Sometime the next day, he finds that he can’t take it anymore. He splashes some water on his puffy eyes and stumbles out of his room, only to run smack into Beverly exiting her own room.

She stops, deer-in-the-headlights. She’s wearing one of Ben’s shirts and basically nothing else. Part of Richie even hates this, the fact that Ben and Bev got their happy ending when he didn’t get his and Eddie got fuck-all. But the feeling is eclipsed by sheer relief that Ben _finally_ grew a pair and told Bev how he feels. (At least one of them did). So he swallows down his bitterness and cracks a smile. “Walk of shame, Bev? Don’t bother, I heard the orchestra swelling from all the way down the hall.”

She relaxes, and punches him in the shoulder on her way past. “Fuck off, Richie.”

“It was very moving,” he needles, following her downstairs to the bar. “I mean, the earth was.”

“You’re not funny,” she says, pouring herself a drink.

“Well it must have been either really great or really terrible, to drive you to drink this time of the morning.”

She gives him a weird look. “It’s five in the afternoon, Richie.”

He squints, momentarily thrown by this. “Oh. Well in that case...” He pours himself a bourbon.

He thinks that she probably meant to return to her room after getting her alcohol, but they stay at the bar for a while, watching the light outside fade away. She’s still treating him with kid gloves, though she’s trying not to be obvious about it, so he reverts to obnoxious comments to try and throw her off.

“Hey, not to ruin the moment, but aren’t you married?”

Bev’s face goes still. She’s been pointedly dodging questions about her marriage since she arrived back in Derry, which is enough to tell him that it’s not in great shape. Not that Richie would give a fuck either way. Part of him feels like the last twenty seven years haven’t actually been real, and the things they did, the people they met, had no substance compared to what they left behind here. But he never married or had a serious relationship, so what the fuck does he know? “Never mind,” he says flatly. “Sorry. Beep, beep.”

Bev sighs. “Don’t worry about it. I … kind of already left him anyway.”

Richie already doesn’t care, but something tells him that he should be very glad about this. Those weird bruises on her arms that none of them have wanted to ask about (kickboxing, right? Bev is totally the type to kickbox) suddenly look much starker. “He an asshole?”

“He was some kind of asshole.” She lights up a cigarette and offers him one. He accepts. “Shocker, I know.”

Richie hasn’t wanted to kill anyone as much as the clown (he didn’t even want to kill Bowers, really; it just kind of happened), but he thinks this guy might be a good candidate, if he ever met him. More presently, he doesn’t like the self-deprecating twist to her mouth. “You’re meant for better things than that, Bev, you know that, right? Like that sweet stack of muscles upstairs.”

She rolls her eyes, smiling. “He is very sweet,” she agrees delicately.

“Yeah, he’s like a cake that just needed to bake for three decades. Came out of the oven all hot and ready to serve,” Richie says.

Beverly Marsh actually blushes. Richie feels true delight; he never thought he’d see the day.

Lucky for her, they’re interrupted before he can keep teasing. Bill walks into the bar, and stops so suddenly at the sight of them that he trips over his own feet. Clumsy fucker, Richie thinks fondly. “Am I interrupting?”

It’s at that point that Bev seems to realise she’s wearing nothing but Ben’s shirt, and excuses herself to get changed. Richie expects her to sidle past Bill with maximum awkwardness, and is prepared to enjoy it, but the two of them merely pause and smile at each other in the hallway, some unspoken emotion between them. Then Bev darts up the stairs, her bare feet quick on the cold floorboards, and Bill sits down cautiously beside Richie.

“You ok-k-kay?”

Richie’s good mood suddenly torpedoes. There’s no reason for it that he can see; it’s just a thing that happens. Maybe because of Bev’s bruises, and because he knows that there are other problems out there in the real world, lying in wait for them. They can’t all be bullied to death. Eddie could have died a thousand times, and it wouldn’t make a difference. He downs another shot. “Peachy.”

Bill frowns. “Richie …”

He stands up quickly. Part of him almost wants to head back upstairs, but his feet are rooted to the floor. He’s had enough time alone with his shitty thoughts. He’s never been the type to withdraw when he’s upset (lash out, sure. Run away, definitely. But that’s different). “Just don’t. Please.”

Bill looks like he wants to press the point, pressing his lips together in that stubborn Bill way. Richie turns away, looking for a distraction. “Does anyone even work here?” he asks aloud, because he hasn’t seen a single staff member since the squinty old lady at the desk took his money when he first arrived.

“I … m-may have paid the owner extra to steer clear for a c-couple of days,” Bill says, looking embarrassed.

“Huh.” Richie takes another sip of his drink. “We all grew up to be _those_ kinds of rich assholes, didn’t we?”

Bill shrugs sheepishly. “Maybe.”

The front door opens, and Mike enters. Richie didn’t realise he even left, but he’s holding a duffel bag full of his own shit in one arm and a stack of pizzas in the other, so that explains it.

“Thought you guys might be hungry,” he explains. “I think I remember what toppings you all like.”

“Oh, is Ben still a pineapple loving heathen?” Richie asks. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him if Ben is a full-on vegan. Abs aside, he can’t possibly look ten years younger than the rest of them for _nothing_.

“Probably yes. I don’t think you grow out of a condition like that.”

Richie watches Mike as he moves around. He looks a little less like the desperate, frantic stranger who had called them back to Derry, and a little more like the calm, gentle dude that Richie remembers him as. The lunacy’s probably still there somewhere – Richie knows _he’d _be irreversibly bonkers if he stayed in Derry his whole life, never mind being forgotten by the only real friends he ever had – but he looks like he feels safe for the first time in a long time.

When Richie stops to think about it, he realises _he_ feels safe, too. It’s hollow rather than comforting, because Eddie never got to have that, either.

He chases the thought away with another drink as Bev comes back downstairs with Ben in tow, drawn by the smell of pizza.

They all congregate in the lounge, slowly drawing closer to each other as the alcohol takes effect. Richie feels like they’re putting him in the middle again, though he can’t tell if it’s on purpose, like at the quarry, or purely subconscious. It doesn’t bother him, but it does feel weird. Once, he’d have done whatever he could to remain the centre of their attention, cracking every stupid joke that came to mind. But without Eddie there to react to him, it’s just not the same. So he sits on the floor beside the couch where Ben and Bev sit, legs sprawling and head lolling, and lets the others talk. Bill complains about film studios, Mike tells them stupid stories about the Derry locals, and Ben tries to explain the weird intersection between his geeky personal life and the sexy rich CEO life he somehow inhabits.

Bev doesn’t say a lot; in fact, she’s quieter than Richie. But her hand finds the back of his neck at some point, and he finds that he doesn’t mind. Ben’s pressed up against her other side, one arm curved carefully around her shoulder like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to do that. Richie can feel his soft laugh reverberate through Bev and the sofa, and that’s kind of okay, too. Bill’s watching them contentedly from his place by the fire and Mike is smiling the same way he used to when they were thirteen, dreaming of better things that would never come. There’s something light and languid about the evening, even if Richie still feels hollowed out.

Richie knows the conversation will turn to Eddie eventually. He decides to take control of it, as if that might help. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you all,” he slurs. “For not letting me drag that little asshole’s body out.”

The room goes dead silent. Richie winces; that didn’t come out right. He _is_ angry about that, as much as he understands why they did it, but it’s not the point he’s trying to make right now. He barrels right ahead before any of them can say anything. “I mean, can you imagine the funeral? The eulogy? I could have said whatever the fuck I wanted and he wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it.”

They exchange furtive glances, as if they’re not sure whether it’s ok to contribute to his black humour. Then Bev, thank Christ, smirks. “He might have actually come back just to yell at you.”

They all crack a smile at that, imagining Eddie flinging the lid off his own coffin just to tell Richie what an asshole he was. The funeral devolving into a screaming match, hundreds of teary mourners glancing back and forth between them with slack-jawed expressions. Richie laughed, high-pitched and slightly hysterical; such a hilariously tragic image, it’s a wonder Pennywise himself didn’t come up with it.

“We should have a service,” Mike says, once Richie has calmed himself down. “Even without a body. He deserves that.”

“What would we tell people?” Ben asks quietly. “About … how he died?”

Richie snorts. “It’s Derry, for fuck’s sake. No one would care.”

“His wife might,” Ben points out.

Richie pauses. Eddie’s wife doesn’t seem real to him; she didn’t when Eddie first mentioned her, or when he showed him a picture of her, or even now when the poor woman won’t ever get to know how her husband died. _Gazebo_, his mind whispers. Richie swallows more bourbon, hating the bitter, selfish feeling in his stomach. “Bill will come up with something,” he says. “Write him a nice ending.”

“It’s not up to me,” Bill says, but he taps his nail against his glass thoughtfully. “B-but. If I did. I’d t-tell people the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That he was a hero, and he d-died saving his friends.”

“Saving me, you mean,” Richie says, the bitterness still sharp in his throat. His eyes are swimming from the alcohol, or maybe something else.

“It wasn’t your fault, Richie,” Bev says, her voice a warning, her hands tightening on the back of his neck slightly.

He slides out of her grip, onto his back. Now the ceiling is swimming. He doesn’t look at them or acknowledge that she’s right. He _knows _she is. He didn’t cause Eddie’s death, but he’s responsible for something almost as bad. Bill’s all about the truth, but Richie couldn’t tell the truth when it really … really counted.

They’re all quiet now, watching him. Maybe to check that he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. He kind of feels like vomiting, actually – it’s become his default reaction to stress, somehow, which is just fucking delightful. But something much worse is churning in his gut, and he just can’t keep it down any longer. “I loved him,” he blurts out to the ceiling.

“I know,” Bill tries to say. “We all did.”

“No,” Richie says, or well, _croaks._ He’s drunk enough that he can’t seem to stop himself, but not drunk enough to stomp out those rancid old feelings of shame and anxiety. How dare he be anxious about something like this, after everything that’s happened? On the other hand, maybe it should feel bad, because he deserves to. There’s no taking it back now, anyway. “No, I love-loved him. _Like_-liked. You know how the kids say it? Yeah. Like that.”

None of them say anything. Richie feels like all the air has been sucked from his lungs.

“Oh, and, I’m gay. Or something.” He flicks his hand toward the ceiling. “Surprise!”

“Oh, Richie,” Bev says, so softly that it makes him start crying again. Richie hasn’t cried this much in _decades_. He’s so sick of it.

“_Fuck,”_ he hisses, throwing his glasses off and pressing the heel of his hands into his eyeballs.

“Did … did Eddie know?” Bill asks hesitantly.

This is where the shame chokes him for real and he can’t answer, just shake his head repeatedly. Then there’s hands under his arms, trying to lift him up off the floor, and he ends up halfway on someone’s lap, too much of a mess to resist. They crowd around him again, tighter than at the lake, an edge of desperation in their touch. As if they really are trying to hold him together.

“For what it’s worth,” Bev says, her voice thick. “I think he loved you too.”

He almost snaps at her to shut the fuck up. It is utterly unfathomable to Richie, that Eddie could ever know Richie liked boys, let alone liked him, let alone return even a scrap of those feelings. But Bev isn’t the type for pretty lies or well-meaning platitudes. It’s the truth or nothing, with Bev.

“I think that’s true,” Bill says. Again, not the type to lie. Come to think of it, _none_ of his friends were ever afraid to tell the truth. It’s only him; _he’s_ the dirty liar.

_Dirty little secret._

Eddie hated dirt. He was afraid of sickness, and for some reason he was also afraid of closets. Could at be that they were both trapped in the exact same cage, and never even knew it?

“It’s okay, Rich,” Bill whispers, as if he can hear his thoughts. “I-it’s okay.”

“I know it’s not the same,” Mike chimes in quietly. “But we love you as well.”

“Always,” Ben says simply.

It takes him a moment to get what they mean. Bastards. How dare they break through the last little dam he had left? The one he built more than thirty years ago, rooted in fear of what they would think, what they would say. An outcast among outcasts, that’s what he would be. They'd kick him out, leave him behind, and he'd just be another meaningless face on a MISSING poster. Maybe if he said something back then, it would have been true. But knowing these sappy fuckers, probably not.

This realisation breaks him for real. He wraps his arms around the closest warm body he can find buries his face into their shoulder, howling like a madman. He’s pretty sure they’re crying too, at least. That’s almost comforting.

_

Bill leaves town first. Then Ben and Beverly, off to find their own sunset. Richie goes soon afterwards, while Mike tidies up his own affairs.

(He has their numbers in his phone. Part of him thinks that he’ll forget everything again, and another part of him even wants that. But deep down, he hopes not; his half-lived, inauthentic little life might have been tolerable before, but right now, the idea of telling someone else’s jokes, surrounding himself with meaningless, vapid people, and wondering why he can’t make a relationship work for another ten or twenty years makes him want to throw up. He’d rather call Bill at four in the morning and tell him why his latest book sucked. He looks forward to hearing where Mike ends up as he ventures outside Hell for the first time. He’s gonna crash on Ben and Bev’s sofa like a twenty-year-old and tease them over breakfast until he can get Bev to blush again. He’s going to make jokes on stage about being a big old repressed gay, and think to himself, _this would make Eddie laugh. He’d kick me in the shin for it, but he’d laugh._

Derry took Eddie and it took Stan, but it didn’t take everything. He’ll hold on to what’s left, even if he has to do it out of spite.)

Anyway, just in case he does forget, he stops by the Kissing Bridge on his way out of town. It’s almost a surprise to see his initial there, right next to Eddie’s. Weathered with age in the rotting wood, but there nonetheless. To think he came here and did that, after feeling so fucking sick and terrified and confused about his whole existence. He thinks Eddie was right, and that they were braver when they were children.

Well, Eddie remembered his own moment, and now Richie is going to reclaim his. He takes the knife out, his hand shaking slightly, and re-carves the letters. Like glass slicing through his palm, it feels like an oath. A committment.

He only realises that he’s started to cry once his glasses start fogging up, but he powers through it.

When it’s done, he runs his thumb over the _E_. Viscerally, he remembers doing the same thing as a kid, his calloused skin catching on the rough wood. He used to get splinters all the time. Eddie yelled at him as he removed then, holding Richie’s hand up to his face and squinting as he pried them out. Always angry, always gentle.

“I love you,” he says quietly to the _E_. That’s something he never managed to say, as a child or an adult. “I love you so much, you stupid, stubborn motherfucker.”

He leaves soon after, gets in his car and drives out of Derry for the last fucking time. He waits for the memories to fade, for his brain to start wonder why he’s crying and move on impatiently to tour dates and his pissed off manager. But his thumb keeps rubbing over the meaty part of his index finger, still feeling the grooves in the wood, his chest still aching in the sweetest way. It stays with him, the memory and the ache, and feels the weight of it sink into his bones.

He thinks, maybe this time, he’ll be brave enough to hold onto it.


End file.
